NEW YORK (CNN) -- Three men have been charged with hate crimes after they are said to have assaulted African-Americans in New York on Election Day when Barack Obama won the White House, authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators say the men used pipes and a collapsible police baton to assault some victims. They say the men also slammed their car into one person they mistook for an African-American, sending him into their windshield and landing him in the hospital in a coma.

Four people were targeted in the attacks, in which the men shouted profanities about Obama, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn said.